


Family

by autumnsolstice9



Series: Justice [10]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-29
Updated: 2018-11-29
Packaged: 2019-09-02 03:47:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16778977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autumnsolstice9/pseuds/autumnsolstice9
Summary: Hanabi has never known her mother, but she knows Hinata.Or: Hanabi waits for her sister.





	Family

**Author's Note:**

> this is very much like a drabble i've been busy with finals but i hope you still enjoy!

Hanabi has never known her mother or her uncle, but she knows her father. She has spent years studying his gaze, how the way his hand tenses is a signal of trouble, how his smiles are always hard to come by and never quite right, never like Iruka-sensei’s or Hinata’s when Hanabi needs them most. She has always known her father is a cold man, has always known how to be Hyuuga proud in a tireless chase for his approval.

When she was younger and closer to her sister, Hinata told her stories about their mother. She said that she liked flower pressing, that she sometimes sang when they had a morning free, how she was graceful even when training. Hanabi’s byakugan eyes are trained to see, so she has never missed how Hinata’s fingers fidgeted during the stories. She has always noticed how her sister’s smiles were always strained within Hyuuga walls.

Hanabi noticed the bruises Hinata had, she always noticed, but she never questioned them. For all her byakugan glory, she missed the way her sister shrank into herself when their father was nearby. She thought Hinata was weak, and it took her many years to realize her father was a monster.

She wonders if he was always that way. Hinata never told her stories about their father, only her mother and, very rarely, their uncle. Before he leaves for war and she might lose all chances to ask again, she asks Neji about her father. Her cousin stared off into space, looking at something Hanabi’s eyes could not see. “He visited after the chuunin exams,” Neji said, “To tell me the truth of my father’s death. Your father has always valued strength over compassion.”

Her mind reels at the information, because she knows for a fact that her father never visited Hinata during her hospitalization, and more importantly, Neji’s father had been dead for years before the fateful chuunin exams, one that her sister’s generation will never forget. There’s so much she wants to ask: did her father have a reason for withholding the information? Why didn’t he tell Neji? Why did he let Neji spend years hating Hinata, belittling her, over something that wasn’t her fault?

Deep inside she knows the truth, so she holds her tongue. She watches her cousin leave for a war she cannot fight in and wonders where her sister is.

Hanabi has never known her mother, but she knows Hinata. Her absence has made the Hyuuga tense, all on edge as they wait for something. It has made her father’s shoulders tight, her cousin’s eyes something other than empty, something that resembles hope, but Hanabi would never dare to say it. Her absence has made Hanabi feel hollow, has made her head spin with the realization that, despite knowing it deep in her soul, she has been blind to the abuse her sister faced.

Hinata’s absence has made Konoha something other than home. Hanabi has trained her byakugan eyes, and though she has missed many things in her lifetime, she does not miss this.

***

Hanabi has cried over her sister. She mourned the night Hinata left the village, a tear for every thought that went unspoken between them. Hanabi sobbed, she grieved, and then when the morning came, she pulled herself together.

Her father did not see her tear tracks nor did he see the way her hands clenched in her sleeves when he called her sister a traitor. Her father has never seen what he does not want to, and Hanabi has spent years learning how to change her image to please the world around her.

No one has seen her crumble. Hinata taught her how to fall to pieces and pick herself back together without anyone noticing, her sister telling her in hushed words that they must not show tears to father, countless nights of her sister telling her that in this world, in their Hyuuga world, they must learn to protect themselves and hide their moments of weaknesses.

“You must let people see what you want it them to see. How the world sees you is your choice,” Hinata had whispered into the night, once, when things were simpler. “The byakugan sees everything, but it also misses so much. Mother told me that.”

Hanabi lets the world see her strength, see her loyalty to her clan, and her mischievous smile. She does let them see the tears she cries over her sister; Hinata taught her too well for that.

***

Her father declared her heiress the day after Hinata left. Hanabi spent years in a delicate balance with her sister, but they both knew that eventually Hanabi would win this game. It is not a matter of who is the better fighter, it is the fact that Hanabi is their father’s favorite that will always put her ahead.

Hanabi is declared heiress in front of all the Hyuuga, and her words of thanks taste like ash in her mouth. The branch members politely clap their hands, but Hanabi sees the way their shoulders are stiff and how their eyes say what they cannot.

They are waiting for Hinata to come back, to reclaim what is her birthright.

She cannot say it and she cannot let them see it, but Hanabi does the same. That night, she dreams of her sister coming back and freeing them all from the gilded cage they sit in.

***

She understands Hinata’s reasons for leaving, but her gut still feels uneasy. Part of her is certain that their father would never actually give Hinata the seal, but another part remembers the familiar bruises that littered Hinata’s body, the way their father’s ever present frown grew deeper when Hinata walked in the room.

Neji is gone at war, and Hanabi has little to do in her free time. One day, she finds herself walking to her father’s office, her hand already lightly knocking for entrance before she can stop herself. 

“Enter,” his voice rumbles from within.

She walks into the room, closing the door behind herself. Her father does not look up from whatever document he is writing, and Hanabi finds herself biting her lip for a moment before a wave of courage takes over her body.

“Father,” she asks, “During the chuunin exams, the one where Neji-nii almost killed Hinata-nee, why didn’t you visit Hinata in the hospital?”

He still does not glance up. “It was not important.”

She isn’t sure what she expected, but that was not it. She was ready for something like “the nurses forbade it”, but this somehow takes her by surprise. Hanabi is struck by the realization that Hinata has always been seen this way by their father- not important enough for even a hospital visit.

Hanabi is young, too young to think about how their father has been spending years waiting for her sister to die and be out of the way. She is so tired of the Hyuuga games, tired of being the future of a clan that has no choice, one that would turn their back on someone who has done nothing but fight for their place in the world.

She has never known her mother, but she thinks in this moment that she misses her, and she tries to ignore how it feels so very much like missing Hinata. 

***

Neji returns from the war, the Hyuuga forces in tow. “I saw her,” he tells Hanabi, clutching her arm, “I saw Hinata. She’s alive.”

Hanabi lets out a shuddering breath she did not realize she was holding in and takes in the way his hitai-ate is tied around his neck, most of the Hyuuga forces wearing theirs the same way. “What does she say? When will she return?”

Her fathers shadow is growing taller, looming over her and her cousin. “Soon,” Neji says voice loud and strong, his jaw tightening as her father grows closer. “Hinata-hime says she will return soon.”

Her father places a heavy hand on her shoulder. “She will return and be executed.”

The surrounding clan members grow taut at his words, a nearly imperceptible tensing of their muscles that Hanabi picks up on. The crowd is large, all surviving members of the war that they miraculously won.

“No,” a branch member calls out, one Hanabi has seen playing with a small girl she presumed to be his daughter, “Hinata-hime will come and save us.”

The hand on her shoulder tightens.

“Hinata-hime will free us!” another cries.

“Hinata-hime saved Naruto during the war! She saved us!” another voice shouts.

“Hinata-hime will return,” Neji says from where he stands in front of them, his gaze stuck on her father, eyes flashing like iron, “and you will fear the day she comes.”

“She will die the minute she steps foot in Konoha,” her father says, his voice edging towards anger and his delicate display of impassiveness breaking.

The words echo in her head and Hanabi’s heart pumps in her chest and her hands reach for her hitai-ate, clutching onto it like a life-line. She has never let the clan see her tears or the way she desperately misses her sister, but she lets them and her father watch as she ties her hitai-ate around her neck the way Hinata did every morning before training.

The hand on her shoulder hurts, but Hanabi ignores it. Hinata is safe, she is returning, she is going to free the Hyuuga.

Hanabi has never known her mother or her uncle, but she knows her sister and her father. She pushes the hand off her shoulder and steps towards Neji and the surrounding Hyuuga. “She will return,” Hanabi cheerfully says, a smile breaking out, a laugh erupting from somewhere deep within her. Tears are streaming down her face, but she cannot help it.

Hinata is safe, and she will return.

She thinks of all the times her sister brushed her hair back, the way she would sneak Hanabi the last cookie, how her father has threatened her time and time again. “She will return!” Hanabi shouts out, her arms raised towards the sky. The surrounding Hyuuga members cheer, and Neji puts a hand on her shoulder, light, gentle, everything her father is not.

Hanabi looks at her father’s face, and though her stomach twists slightly at the fear in his eyes, she smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> hanabi watching hinata get abused and then seeing her sister be like 'fuck u hiashi' and supporting her is what we deserve!!!! fuck hiashi!!!!!!!!


End file.
